The next morning something happened that was funny. Another person came to ask for me. Amy heard Ito admit him and told Ito to let him wait in the hall.
“So many strange people coming, Ito,” she said loudly (I heard this afterward); “I think it would be wisest to let him wait in the hall.”
Then I was called and I faced--Willy Jepson.
“Hello, Nat,” he said loudly. “I’m going to Columbia, starting this term. Wouldn’t let your uncle tell you. How are you?”
I said I was well.
“You’re looking it,” he asserted, and I could see that he was impressed with my clothes. Then we went into the library, and I could see that Amy liked Willy’s looks, but evidently he did not like hers.
“Have you met before?” I asked, for Amy was smiling so widely that I thought they had.
“No,” answered Willy, “your cousin told the Jap to let me wait in the hall--and so I heard her voice, but we have not met.” Willy was insulted by that. He told me so afterward.
“Nat,” he said, “all the instincts of a Southern gentleman were outraged in me by that order. I, the son of Colonel Jepson of Queensburg, Virginia, am not used to waiting in halls!” Willy has quite a little dignity when he wants to use it, and, like all Southern men, puts out his chest a tiny bit when he speaks of the fact that he is a Southerner. To be just, Amy did not understand how frightful he thought it was, but in our town anyone but a nigger is asked in, and warmly welcomed. Even Mr. Bilkins would have stopped for supper with anyone of our first families. We are built that way and the North is not, that is all.
Amy smiled at Willy and asked him to come over and sit with her beside the fire. He complied rather stiffly.